KAFKA: FATHER AND SON*
Max Brod
A
LL HIS LIFE
Franz Kafka stood in the shadow of his father's
powerful personality, Hermann Kafka was physically impressive: tall,
broad-shouldered. His long life had been filled with hard work, re–
warded by considerable success in business, burdened by much sick–
ness. He left behind him a large family of children and grandchildren
in whom he took a patriarchal pleasure. And after the wholesale 40use
on the AltsHi.dter Ring had been sold, his estate still included a four–
story apartment house in the center of Prague. By
his
own labors and
sacrifices he had built up an extensive family and kept it going. This
achievement, taking hold of his son's imagination, left its mark on
all his work,
In November, 1919 Kafka wrote a lengthy and detailed "Letter
to My Father," More than a hundred pages long, the letter was, as
I gathered from conversations with Franz, really intended to be given
to
his
father (through his mother); and Franz believed at the time
that in this way he could clarify the painfully deadlocked relation
between them. Had the letter been cfeiivered, the effect would in all
probability have been the opposite of what Franz intended; it could
scarcely have helped the father to understand the son. But in any case
Frau Kafka did not deliver it: with a gentle word or two she returned
it to Franz. And after that we spoke no more of the matter.
"Dear Father," it begins. "You once asked me why I claimed
to be afraid of you.
As
usual I could find no answer, partly because
I
was
afraid of you, partly because my fear was too complex to talk
about." There follows a detailed analysis of the relationship between
this strange father and this strange child, together with a study
Of
his
own character, that amounts to a short autobiography. Here and
• In 1924, at the age of 41, Franz Kafka died in a Vienna hospital. His
lifelong friend and literary executor, Max Brod, has just published a biogra–
phical study entitled,
Franz:. Kafka: Eine Biographie.
From its opening chapter
we excerpt a passage that seeks in his relationship to his father the origin of cer–
tain elements of Kafka's work. Later chapters in Herr Brod's book show how
this relationship combined with social, religious and esthetic influences to shape
the characteristic Kafkian art.
(Ed.)
19
